In Sri Lanka: Protecting Peiris, hounding victim's family

The magistrate's hearings into the January
24, 2010, disappearance of opposition journalist and cartoonist Prageeth
Eknelygoda continue at a tortuously slow pace. A correspondent in Colombo shared
the details of the April 24 hearing, where Eknelygoda's wife, Sandhya, and the
couple's two teenage sons continue to press for any news of Prageeth. The family's
attorney said he may have to press Sri Lanka's Appeal Court to order former
Attorney General Mohan Peiris to testify about the comments he made at the U.N.
Committee Against Torture on November 9, 2011, in Geneva. The government
has ignored the January
2012 ruling by the Court that Peiris could be called in as a witness.

As we reported in a November 2011 posting, "Sri
Lanka's savage smokescreen," Peiris told the U.N. Committee Against Torture that Eknelygoda had taken refuge in a foreign country and that the campaign
against his disappearance is a hoax, although he failed then and ever since to
provide information about where Eknelygoda has supposedly fled.

The government's attorney at the most recent magistrate's
hearing argued that, because Peiris might have been speaking on behalf of the
government at the Human Rights Commission, he cannot be held responsible for
his remarks and need not appear in court.

Last
month, we reported on the government's tactics to verbally intimidate Sandhya
and her two sons at the magistrate's hearing. Eknelygoda had incurred the wrath
of the government by appearing at hearings in Geneva, where a U.N. Human
Rights Council resolution called for an investigation into Sri Lanka's
alleged abuses of international humanitarian law during its war with Tamil
separatists.

Patient and with infinite grace under pressure, she says she
intends to continue to press her court case and her low-level public campaign
to learn of the fate of her husband.

Meanwhile, members of the Colombo diplomatic community have
been making regular appearances at the court hearings, just to remind the Sri
Lankan government that the rest of the world is keeping an eye.

Next month, the magistrate will hear from the last person to
speak with Prageeth over the phone. We will keep you informed of what transpires.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The second paragraph of this post has been corrected to reflect that Peiris spoke in November 2011 to the U.N. Committee Against Torture, not the Asian Human Rights Commission as previously stated.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.